Transit

This morning, as lawmakers inside the Michigan statehouse heard testimony on the creation of a regional transit system for greater Detroit, supporters held a musical demonstration outside, singing "Ain't no mountain high enough to keep us from getting a regional transit authority." The singers, who hailed from the city proper and its suburbs, are hoping the divided metropolitan region can finally enact the transit unity that has long eluded it.

The city and state need to shift gears to create a more resilient transportation network in the wake of Hurricane Sandy, a group of New York University transportation researchers argue in a report released this morning. Chief among their recommendations: New York must get serious about Bus Rapid Transit and create permanent, physically-separated transit lanes to keep bus riders from getting stuck in traffic.

Supporters of livable streets may hear about the “flexibility” of transportation dollars and cringe – after all, that word often refers to the ability of states to use bike/ped money for road building. But flexibility can work both ways. Between 2007 and 2011, states devoted $5 billion in surface transportation funds -- known in some quarters as "highway money" -- to transit programs, according to the Government Accountability Office.

New York City transit riders haven't had much to be thankful for recently. Sure, countdown clocks have arrived on some subway lines, and buses are moving faster on the routes where the MTA and NYC DOT have implemented Select Bus Service. But overall, the story of NYC transit the last few years has been about service cuts and fare hikes, as the MTA struggles with rising costs and volatile revenues.

Remember those wizards of counter-intuition, the Freakonomics guys? You know, the ones who told their audience that it's safer to drive drunk than to walk drunk? Well, in his latest piece for NPR's Marketplace, which ran with the headline "Save the Earth, Drive Your Car," Stephen Dubner talks to Clemson University's Eric Morris and arrives at the ridiculous conclusion that driving is greener than transit.

While some coastal areas in Staten Island cope with the devastation of Sandy, the city is moving ahead with a public meeting tonight about a parking-saturated mega-development for the north end of the island. According to one developer, the project will include "every possible bit of parking" that can be built there. At the same time, the developers will contribute nothing to improve surface transit to the site, even though it is located in the most transit-accessible part of Staten Island and the MTA is planning a new busway that will directly serve the area.

In addition to some of the high-profile measures that we covered already, Election Day brought many successes on some smaller ballot initiatives. According to the Center For Transportation Excellence, pro-transit campaigns had an 80 percent success rate this year at the ballot box, with more ballot measures coming up for a vote than any previous year.

Last night delivered some good results -- and some disappointment -- for transit-related ballot initiatives around the country.

It's Election Day -- finally! The top of the ticket has sucked most of the oxygen out of the room, but don't forget that there are 19 transportation-related measures on ballots across the country. So far this year, pro-transit measures have an 86 percent success rate at the ballot, and there are more transportation amendments being voted on this year than any other in recent memory. Here's Streetsblog's overview of the big ones.